In 1986 the British Royal Society announced, "There is no convincing
evidence of innate gender differences in mathematical ability." In 1989 the
National Research Council of the United States dismissed the "biological
determinism" of sex differences in mathematics, citing evidence from the vast
majority of studies finding "almost no differences in performance among male
and female students who have taken equal advantage of similar opportunities to
study mathematics."

There is a great deal of evidence that sex differences in math
achievement are not biologically or genetically based. For example:

In the past 15 years sex differences in mathematics achievement have
become small enough, in most areas to be considered negligible. While society
may change fast enough for this to happen, biology doesn't. Genetic differences
tend to remain stable, but sex differences in mathematics achievement are
decreasing.

Sex differences in such traditionally "masculine" areas as spatial
relations have been eliminated by changing teaching practices and providing
both girls and boys with opportunities to build their skills. Practice can
improve many things, but not genes.

The findings that gifted 7th grade boys are much more likely than girls
to score highly on the SAT: Math, which are often used to justify a biological
basis to math sex differences, are seriously flawed because the researchers:

Assumed that because girls and boys have been in the same math
classes they have had the same experiences.

Assumed that differences on the SAT, a test the courts have found to
be biased against women, are biological.

Assumed that gifted children whose parents pay over $30 for their
children to take a test represent the population as a whole.

Told girls and boys BEFORE they take the SAT that girls don't do as
well as boys!

In earlier ages, it was believed that women could not pursue
mathematics because, for example, their heads were too small, their nervous
systems too delicate or their reasoning capacities insufficient. Such an
eminent educational theorist as Rousseau believed that women were not qualified
for research in abstract areas such as mathematics and science because their
brains were unfit. While such notions are clearly passe they do have 20th
century counterparts (Armstrong, 1985).

The question researchers and teachers should ask is not "Is there a math
gene?" but rather "Why is it that the difference in the participation rates of
women and men in scientific fields is so large when sex differences in
intellectual abilities are so small?"